


What's in your basket?

by Butterfish



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: First Meetings, Funny, Humor, M/M, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-09
Updated: 2012-08-09
Packaged: 2017-11-11 18:19:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/481468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Butterfish/pseuds/Butterfish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alfred tries to figure out who forgets boring shopping lists in the baskets he use when going shopping for groceries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's in your basket?

You know how you go to a supermarket and pick up a basket just to realise that the person before you didn’t empty it? I don’t mean in the way that they left two tins of tuna and a cucumber in there. That would just be disturbing. It’s when they decide to just crumble their receipt together and leave it for the next person to go through. It’s annoying. Suddenly you’re getting involved in someone else’s life and you’re not interested in knowing whether they bought cat food or likes red wine or got two DVDs for the price of one. Of course you can just chose to ignore the paper and place your milk on top of it, or you can throw it out or even pick another basket. That’s what I normally do. But the other day I couldn’t help but to go through the receipt someone had left, because not only was it without a single wrinkle, laying there just staring up at me, but the things this person had bought made me look twice.

In front of me was listed the recipe for making the most boring person alive. Not only did it seem that this person bought vegetables and free-range chicken for dinner, chose the milk produced by a small, expensive firm and preferred tea to coffee. They hadn’t even bought a single snack they could enjoy while watching the last item on their list, a DVD with the title: “The history of the aubergine”. I know you shouldn’t judge a person solely on what they buy. If anyone was to see my groceries, they would think I live off of coke, chocolate and cake, and while it’s not far from the truth, the picture they would get of me in their mind wouldn’t fairly represent what I really look like. But still all I could imagine was that this had to be a hippie girl with flowers in her hair and love written down her arms, someone who shouldn’t even be shopping at a supermarket but probably needed to give her goat in the backyard a time-off and let him have the grass to himself for once.

I read the small paper twice, wondered what an aubergine was, and then finally dumped the receipt it in the nearby bin. I didn’t give much thought to it as I went to buy my groceries and returned home with two bags stuffed with coke and cake, and a thick bar of chocolate hanging from my lips. Little did I know that this would just be one in many encounters with this mysterious person’s preference in groceries.

The next time I came across a receipt once again and I wasn’t in doubt that it belonged to the same person, because on the bottom it was noted that a DVD with the title “The history of the aubergine” had been returned as the disc had been scratched and unable to play. The brand of milk bought was the same, the tea the same (earl grey), and even the listed vegetables painfully similar. But one thing was different. This time a snack had been bought, but not the kind I would stuff my mouth with. I had to look closely to make sure I read it correctly:

1x Eco-friendly Wholegrain Cookies, 200gram - $6

I couldn’t think of a more boring thing to crunch between your teeth and I imagined thick cookies heavy as stone, chipping your teeth and making your gums bleed. No wonder all that milk was needed. How else would you swallow?

Once again I shook my head in disbelief, crumbled the paper and threw it in the bin, but my curiosity had grown; who was this person I seemed to come across all the time? Why didn’t they empty their basket before putting it over to the others? ‘Maybe,’ I pondered, ‘it’s an exhibitionist. They get a thrill out of others knowing stuff about them. Leaving a list of their groceries makes them feel exposed and embarrassed. Maybe they get off on it.’ Worse was it that I couldn’t stop this theory from evolving as I kept getting to the supermarket just too late for me to meet the person, but early enough to pick up the basket with their list still in it.

I started getting slightly obsessed with this person. I went from shopping once a week to go every other day to see if I could catch the mysterious shopper placing a “The history of the potato”-DVD in their basket, bleeding from their lips as they looked at the heavy cookies, or maybe linger by the milk with longing eyes. But of course I failed miserably and only ever got receipt after receipt handed to me in a red basket, the handle sometimes still warm from the last user. Once in a while there would be a shopping list, too, written in a neat, thin handwriting using a blue ballpoint pen, but that was my only clue. No name, no nothing, and as I noticed I’d started collecting these handwritten notes, I accepted that this had to stop. I ripped them apart, threw them out and decided to never again think of this insane person who left traces of themselves everywhere. I avoided baskets with receipts in them, I didn’t glance at boring cookies to see if anyone was around. I started living life as before, shopping for coke, chocolate and cake once a week. And as everything was going great, the person of course decided to make their final move. Worse was it that it was my own fault.

That day as I’d finished my shopping, I hurried across the parking lot to get to my car before getting too wet. It was raining heavily from above and I had no umbrella, but in my eager I forgot to take everything out of my basket and I didn’t realise before unloading the two bags into my car and finding myself still holding the red handle. I returned to the supermarket with annoyance written all over my face and placed the basket next to the others. I was about to turn around as someone cleared their throat behind me and asked:

“Are these yours?”

I turned and saw a short, young man with blond hair and green eyes staring back at me. He was holding a bunch of papers in his hand and as I took them from him, I noticed that they were my old receipts and shopping lists. There were at least twenty of them collected in a neat bunch and tied together with a red string.

“You leave them everywhere. It’s quite annoying,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I stuttered surprised and wondered what a freak would’ve collected these for months, but that’s when I spotted the basket hanging by his arm. I recognised everything in it; the brand of milk, the cookies (now with “improved taste”), yet a boring DVD and two boxes of tea. I could’ve screamed right at the spot.

“You!” I said.

“Me?” he asked, his thick brows rising.

“You leave your receipts everywhere too.”

He looked insulted. “I do not.”

“Then how do I know you bought “The history of the aubergine” on the 3rd of August this year?” I asked in a hurry and I might even have sounded creepy had I not been holding a bunch of receipts collected by the very same guy I had stalked for the past months.

He blushed furiously. “Have you been following me?” he asked, and I slapped his shoulder with the papers and retorted:

“Have you been following me?”

“How can I not! Crumbled receipts filled with sweets and sugary stuff. You’re heading for diabetes.”

“And you’re heading for the dentist,” I said and pointed to his cookies. We stood staring at each other for a while and as neither of us said anything, I felt I had to clear my throat. “Well,” I said. “But I must admit you look more cool than I thought.” And he did. Surely he was wearing a green, fuzzy sweater, but the glimpse to his eyes told me he was witty and intelligent, and didn’t own a goat.

He nodded and looked away before sighing: “I’m disappointed. I thought I was chasing a sugar-high teenager. I wanted to teach you a lesson.”

“Well, I feel taught,” I said and shamefully flickered through my shopping lists, all of them with the word ‘cake’ written on the bottom.

He looked me up and down. “I’m Arthur,” he then said and held out his hand, and I shook it with a little smile.

“I’m Alfred.”

“Care to go for a drink?” he asked and I handed him back my bunch of papers and watched him pop it into his basket.

“As long as it’s not milk,” I said, and he rolled his eyes and handed me his basket as if it was just silently agreed that I had to carry it for him for having made such a stupid joke.

That was the day I met the mysterious shopper. And it was still not the end of us.


End file.
